sexual assault
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Wendy Williams Is Wildin’; When It Comes to Sexual Assault, Women Can Get It Twisted, Too
Talk show host Wendy Williams has a long history of being problematic. Years before her success as a television host, she dominated New York City radio as a shock jock obsessed with celebrity gossip and provocative chitchat. She spat vitriol that scathed her targets and caused many of them to retaliate, most notably Sean “Diddy”…
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Can We Get It on a T-Shirt? ‘We Come in Peace, but We Mean Business’ Is Our New Mantra
In an awards season full of gestures and platitudes in support of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, many of us wondered how the music industry’s biggest night would acknowledge an issue that has also plagued its ranks. 2017 was the year of both a sexual-assault-case win by superstar Taylor Swift and the start of ongoing…
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Bill Cosby Makes 1st Public Appearance at Philly Jazz Club, Months Before the Retrial of His Sexual Assault Case
Amid the groundbreaking work of the #MeToo movement, a mere months before jury selection is scheduled to begin before his own retrial in a sexual assault case, Bill Cosby decided to take the stage at a jazz club in Philadelphia for his first public appearance since the allegations came forward in 2015. According to NBC,…
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Playing the Blame Game: Consent Is Both Simpler and More Complicated Than You Think
He liked me. I liked him back. I exchanged my phone number for his beeper information, and it was a go. In the days of analog communication—before inboxes and DMs—that is what a hookup entailed. His responses to my pages were timely, and he didn’t mind spending countless hours discussing hip-hop. I was digging Ghostface.…
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The Conversation About Aziz Ansari Is an Uncomfortable Mess, Which Is Why We Need to Have It
If there were one word to accurately describe the now-much-discussed piece in which a young woman accuses Aziz Ansari of sexual assault on their first date, it would be “messy.” What’s laid in front of readers is an awkward and, at times, bare account of how the date devolved into a veritable tug-of-war of sexual…
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Watch: Like Simone Biles, How Many More Will Say #MeToo?
If there’s one fact I’ve learned over and over again in my 26 years on this planet, it’s that as a woman, I’m never safe, and the world could not give a damn about changing that. In the past few months, droves of women have bravely come forward to detail their experiences of sexual assault.…
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Actress Says She Didn’t Want Seal’s ‘Kiss From a Rose,’ Accuses Singer of Sexual Assault
On the heels of criticizing Oprah Winfrey’s friendship with Harvey Weinstein, “Kiss From a Rose” singer Seal is now being investigated for sexual battery. Seal’s neighbor actress Tracey Birdsall says that in 2016 he forcibly kissed and groped her. In an interview with TMZ, Birdsall said that the incident happened when she went to Seal’s…
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Tracee Ellis Ross, Shonda Rhimes, Reese Witherspoon Discuss Time’s Up Movement With Oprah Winfrey
Hollywood’s leading women gathered with Oprah Winfrey in Pasadena, Calif., this week to discuss Hollywood’s reckoning with sexual harassment and abuse and the resulting Time’s Up movement. The panel included actresses Reese Witherspoon, America Ferrera, Natalie Portman and Tracee Ellis Ross, as well as producer Shonda Rimes, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and attorney Nina Shaw.…
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Pastor Who Admitted to Sexually Assaulting Teen Put on Leave
Updated Friday, January 12 2018, 8:55 AM EST: CNN reports that a pastor who admitted to having a sexual encounter with a teen will be placed on leave. Andy Savage, a pastor at Highpoint Church in Tennessee, confessed on Sunday to his congregation that he had a “sexual incident” with a high school senior in…